Rear-front Memorial, War memorial in Magnitogorsk, Russia

The Rear-front Memorial stands on an 18-metre artificial hill on the bank of the Ural River, its base reinforced with reinforced concrete piles. Two bronze figures, a worker and a warrior, raise a single sword overhead: the worker grips the hilt and faces east toward the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, the warrior supports the blade and faces west. A stone flower of Karelian granite holds an eternal flame, and two human-height trapezoids bear in bas-relief the names of Magnitogorsk residents awarded Hero of the Soviet Union.

The memorial was unveiled in 1979, marking the first part of a Soviet three-part monument group connecting Magnitogorsk, Volgograd, and Berlin through symbolic sword monuments. This linking of the cities emerged from their shared wartime history and collective memory.

The two human-height granite trapezoids carry bas-relief names of Magnitogorsk residents awarded Hero of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War. Since 9 May 2005, two triangular sections list more than 14,000 local residents who died in the war. The stone flower of Karelian granite holds an eternal flame.

The monument stands on an 18-metre artificial hill on the bank of the Ural River, its base reinforced with reinforced concrete piles. The worker statue faces east toward the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, the warrior faces west. Two human-height trapezoids carry bas-relief names of local Heroes of the Soviet Union; since 9 May 2005 two triangular granite sections list more than 14,000 residents who died in the war.

The sword links three monuments, not three countries: Magnitogorsk, where it is forged; Volgograd's Mamayev Kurgan, where the Motherland raises it; and Berlin's Treptow Park, where the Warrior-Liberator lowers it. Izvestia noted this trilogy in 1975, four years before the Magnitogorsk monument opened.